Though the company called Kalamazoo home and the club includes members all around the world, New York City is the place that made the Checker as recognizable as it is today, and to the Big Apple the Checker Car Club of America will travel for its national convention next year.

While a sizable order for taxis for a Chicago cab company prompted the formation of the company that would become Checker Motors in 1921, within a couple years the company went on to establish sales operations in New York City and, according to James Hinckley’s book, Checker Cab Co. Photo History, Checker went on to sell more than 2,000 cabs in New York over its first couple of years – about half of its total production.

Of course, Checkers have never been the only cars operating as taxis in the Five Boroughs. They competed not only with regular automobiles repurposed as taxis but also purpose-built cabs such as Hertz and GM’s Yellow Cab. Hinckley notes that by the end of the 1920s, about 8,000 of the city’s 21,000 taxis were Checkers, but those proportions would soon change in Checker’s favor. When New York City – along with many other major cities across America in the early 1930s – enacted new rules limiting its taxi fleet to purpose-built cabs in 1932, it effectively shut out all but Checker, General Motors Cab (the former Yellow Cab company), De Soto, and Packard from its fleet. Checker flourished in New York City for the next 20 years, eventually comprising more than 9,000 of the nearly 12,000 cabs in the city’s fleet.

While New York City did relax those rules in 1954, opening up the city’s taxi market to Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Dodge, and later Studebaker, Rambler, and even Mercedes, it took more than just the availability of new options to make many cabbies and cab companies switch. As Ben Merkel and Chris Monier wrote in The American Taxi: A Century of Service, the new cabs offered less legroom for rear passengers (not to mention no available jumpseats), big transmission humps and little to no luxury, not to mention high doorsills that trapped liquids in the floors and made the taxis difficult to clean up. By comparison, Checkers still at least offered bolt-on fenders, jumpseats and flat rear floors. “For paying passengers, the old school Checker offered the last real bastion of legroom and folks… frequently bypassed stock sedan taxis in order to hail what they perceived as the last real taxi deal,” Merkel and Monier wrote.

Earl Johnson’s “Janie,” the last NYC medallion Checker cab, in June 1999. Photo by Gert Schmidt.

Taxi owners and operators couldn’t dismiss the economics of the business, particularly when the gas crunch hit in the 1970s. Checkers – heavy and not very fuel efficient – began to lose out to the competition from the Big Three, both in New York and across the country. Still, Checkers continued to feature in TV shows and movies set in New York City during this time (perhaps most prominently as Travis Bickle’s ride of choice in Taxi Driver and perpetually in the background of the TV series Taxi), and New York City cab operators continued to hustle for fares in Checkers all the way through the late 1990s, the last of them, Earl Johnson’s “Janie,” lasting to July 1999. “Even to a generation born as the last Checkers began to roll from the Kalamazoo plant, these cars are still a recognizable part of the American urban landscape,” Hinckley wrote.

Photo by the author.

New York City – where toy Checker cabs remain ubiquitous on streetside vendor stands and where Checker imagery can be found just about everywhere even though few to no Checkers still ply the city’s streets – hasn’t hosted a Checker Car Club of America convention of this caliber for at least 20 years, but club members finally decided to take their national meet to New York City to “strengthen the connection between Checkers and New York City,” according to George Laszlo, the head of the host committee for the club. “We want to show how historically important that link is to both the city and to the club members.

Laszlo said that club members will have the opportunity to visit several taxi garages before putting on a couple Checker- and taxi-themed block parties: one on Friday afternoon by the host hotel in Brooklyn, and one on Saturday afternoon on 25th Street at Lexington Avenue, reportedly a well-known cabbie hangout.

The 2014 Checker Car Club of America annual meet will take place June 19-22. For more information, visit CheckerTaxiStand.com.

I think this is probably a (slightly off geographically) reference to the Bellmore Cafeteria, a noted cab driver hangout, at Park Avenue South and 28th Street. It and the Checkers are, sadly, long gone.

Sorry to nitpick, but the reference to the 1932 law shutting out all the manufacturers but Checker, ignroes the fact that DeSoto and Packerd quickly created purpose-built cabs and DeSotos were at least as common as Checkers through 1954. Check out the movie “The Yellow Cab Man” and you’ll see more purpose-built DeSoto taxis than you can imagine.

The sentence you refer to actually reads “… new rules limiting its taxi fleet to purpose-built cabs in 1932, it effectively shut out all but Checker, General Motors Cab (the former Yellow Cab company), De Soto, and Packard from its fleet.” The narrative does not ignore DeSoto and Packard.

I drove many Checkers for about two years in Chicago. They were painted yellow and people paid me to drive them. Very rugged cars, most of the cabs I drove had over a hundred thousand miles on them (they didn’t give the good ones to a 22 year old beginner). What I remember most about them was that the electronics were always flaky. I guess rattling around over all those Chicago pot holes shook things loose.

Alan,
The electrical issues were almost always due to bad grounds caused by rust. Just about all the lights were grounded to the body so without a wired ground back to the battery, rust would often get in the way.

The streets haven’t gotten any better in Chicago, Alan.. unfortunately. The city is just as cool and fun as ever, though. It’s hard to believe that there’s a vehicle made, other than a hovercraft, that can survive 90% of roads in the US. We’ve got a serious infrastructure problem in this country.

Presumably the cabs you have seen are what we in the UK would call “London Taxis” and have long been made by one or two small firms over the years, consequently retaining the same styling for decades due to the lack of resources &/or competitive need to change style more frequently.

There is some good info on Wikipedia but it doesn’t mention the ’55 Chevrolet as a design inspiration. Although, it’s hard to deny the fact that the Marathon came out after the 1955 Chevy and it had to have influenced the design of the Checker Superba and Marathon, in my opinion. Just like Nissan influences Honda and Toyota influences Maserati and.. er.. well, you know what I mean. Just like architects “borrow” design inspirations from each other, car designers must do that, too. Everyone complains about how all cars look alike “these days”, well, what about everything looking the same in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, etc.? Why wasn’t there a Jaguar XKE-like design in 1929, or a 1955 Chevrolet-like design in 1947? Because nobody wants to take that much of a design risk, and it’s rare, rare, rare for anyone to be able to think that far outside the box when designing anything that consumers will like, and hopefully, purchase. Too far out, and it’s too “far out”.

The famous Checker Marathon came out after the 1955 Chevy, so I would argue that Mr. Hay is more correct than not.

Design elements of the famous taxi date back to the early 50’s. Clay models were displayed as early as 1952. The roof design was essentially complete as was the slab side styling and rear end. Only the grille and hood designs appear to have changed from the clay model to the resulting A8. Given the 1956 Checker A8 chassis was derived from the 1939 Model A, its safe to say that the 1955 Chevy had nothing to do with the Checker. That said the period Nash had many similarities including door and window frame design. Despite being a small manufacturer Checker was quite advanced in many area.

Its an old friend from Naperville at the Timpano’s Chophouse Brian. I was the bartender. I am trying to see if you are still in the Naperville area as if have a question for you. If you are email me please. BOD5018@yahoo.com.

A truly purpose-built car that I am so glad I got to ride in during a few years of employment in NYC. Almost every kind of body type or handicapped person could ride comfortably in Checkers which is no longer the case. Guess nowadays they have to request special vans or??

I sold Checkers for a time in Ann Arbor, Michigan and even had a Checker demo for a company car!
They were big and solid and appealed to an unusual type customer who really appreciated their utilitarian design.

I am also sorry to nitpick but I would challenge that New York City was “the place that made the Checker as recognizable as it is today.” Both Yellow and Checker Cab companies in Chicago used Checkers exclusively for years, and I do recall that of the 4600 cab medallions in Chicago back in the late 1960’s, over 90% of those were held by Checker and Yellow. There were tight financial connections between Yellow Cab and Checker Cab in Chicago and connections to Checker in Kalamazoo as well. It is probably true that more movies were shot in New York than Chicago years ago, and that probably made Checkers recognizable to a broader audience in other countries.

Actually, the ties were even tighter than you state. At one time before the divestiture of the cab operating companies, Chicago Yellow Cab and Chicago Checker Cab were both owned by the Markin family, who founded and owned Checker Cab Manufacturing Company aka Checker Motors Corporation.

Great article. I’m a club member and will be there with my ’76 Checker A11 Taxi next June. I can’t wait. If you want to see a Checker or two before June, stop by the Box House Hotel in Brooklyn. They have a small fleet to transport their patrons in.

My father was an NYC cabdriver for nine years in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Although we were a MOPAR family, he always loved the Checkers. Built like tanks, indestructible, and lost of room for passengers and luggage. We also had a friend whose family car was a “civilian” Marathon. Always great fun to ride in the back on the jump seats as a kid.
Would love to own one myself someday…

I’ll bet that things will get mighty confusing with all those Checkers showing up in NYC. I wouldn’t be surprised if people tried to hail them; just crawl into the back seat and say: ‘Plaza, and step on it.’

I’ve had people try to get into it at the Palmer House in Chicago as the parking valets brought it back to me. When my wife explained it was our private limo, the expression on one lady’s face was priceless.

The town of Woodlake, California bought 2 or 3 Checkers for it’s small town police fleet back in the 70s because while it was a big deal for a big 3 auto to make it to the 100,000 mile mark, Checkers were boasting 300,000 or better.

Well I remember Checker cabs as a child in Chicago and they were everywhere. Mattel’s Matchbox brand made two amazing 1/64th scale model of them from the 60’s. One was the yellow version and the best was the Green checker cab. Great article.

Back in HS, I worked for a place that was associated with Arlington Park Racetrack and the Hilton hotel in Arlington Heights, Ill. The hotel was using 2 stretched 8 door Marathons as airport limos. They were huge, PINK, and indestructible.The owner also had a local coach maker build 2 Caddy de Ville station wagons. They were based on the full size GM wagons with the clam shell tailgate converted to Caddillacs. They were not funeral coaches. Pretty cool if you like the unusual.

A reply to Paul on 25th street. The demographics of taxi drivers have changed a lot over the 100 year history of taxis in New York. Today, a large percent come from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. If you now visit Lexington Avenue around 25th street, you will see dozens of restaurants and take-out places serving food from these lands. If you come for the 2014 Checker Car Club meet on June 21, you can see all the Checkers and also explore this great neighborhood.